The Greene County Medical Center is looking to make changes to its charity policy in the near future.
At last month’s Board of Trustees meeting, Chief Financial Officer Mark VanderLinden spoke about some of the possible changes to the hospital’s policy and why they felt the need to change it.
He says the with the new federal Medicaid expansion program coming up this year, those that receive assistance will include 133% and below the national poverty level will get 100% medical coverage across the state. VanderLinden suggested the medical center extends that policy to include 150%. So, if this policy change is approved, that means a family of four’s income of $35,325 or less will receive 100% medical coverage through GCMC.
Another proposed change is if a patient seeking medical care is already on a county, state or federal assistance program like the USDA’s food stamps, that they will be considered a pre-emptive charity case. And that once they qualify under the charity policy, then the hospital will check that individual’s status every six months instead checking it on a monthly basis.
VanderLinden points out the biggest reason why he feels they should make a change to the policy is because patients aren’t filling out the documents that lets them know about their charity classification for whatever reason.
He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that currently, people are given a three month notice following their initial bill. If they didn’t fill out the paperwork showing that they qualify under the charity policy, then it labeled as bad debt to the medical center and it goes to collections if it is not paid or no contact has been made to the hospital. Then, if no payments are made, GCMC writes it off as bad debt and takes the hit financially.
In 2011, the amount of charity care was at $212,666. In 2012 it was at $139,519 and in 2013 it was at $74,839. Compared to bad debt, the medical center had $724,385 in 2011, $728,332 in 2012 and in 2013, it was at $1,396,994.
He says the ultimate goal is to get people moved from bad debt to charity .
The proposed changes were discussed, but VanderLinden notes that it has to go through the committee level first before it can be voted on by the Board.